


Age of Responsibility

by SLWalker



Series: Taking Flight [13]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Birthday Party, Coming of Age, Friendship, Gen, Grief, Loss, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 14:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12728766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker
Summary: Issa decides that Maul needs a birthday.  Everyone else happens to agree with her.  Given the Age of Responsibility in the Republic is seventeen, this one is a big one.  (And maybe just a little overwhelming, too.)





	Age of Responsibility

He had found, to some internal surprise, that he  _liked_  botany.

Jedi classes were vastly different from Maul’s prior educational experiences.  Mostly because there wasn’t any pain involved, but also because there were whole  _groups_  of students, in one room, working together or learning together; even independent study could be conducted sitting with friends.  Not something he had tried, he was still a little shaky about how one even defined a  _friend_ , but it was nevertheless quite a far cry from what he had once known. Orsis had been closest, but even that had not had the same kinds of pleasantness this did.

It had taken him months before he joined classes, on the urging of Master Jinn, and the first one he had joined had been botany because it was a small class for senior padawans, and because according to– well, everyone, including the healers and Jinn, he tended quite strongly towards the Living Force, and thus would likely excel in courses which catered to that.

The book work was a little dull and tedious sometimes, but the practical work  _was_  enjoyable.  It didn’t take him terribly long to find himself on rotation with the Temple’s gardeners, tending to the many gardens which were an oasis of nature on a planet that had none of its own left.  Once a week or so, he helped plant seedlings and saplings, composted dead leaves, thinned the occasional overzealous bush that threatened to eat its neighbors and fought valiant battles with the wild mint that had been imported decades ago and regularly tried to take over the garden it inhabited.  (His spoils of victory consisted of a constant supply of fresh mint leaves for tea, too.)

Working in the food gardens had a special appeal; he was allowed to sample what he was tending, and thus had gained a taste for a few new fruits and vegetables.  He was slowly getting curious about  _cooking_  of all things; not just skewering a slab of meat over a fire, but actually putting meals together once in awhile.  (He suspected Master Jinn would approve, since Obi-Wan wasn’t allowed to do anything more complicated than making tea.)

This day had started a little strangely, though.  The gardener he usually worked with, a human-twi’lek knight by the name of Sinta, had seemed in a hurry and asked if Maul would go ahead and handle things for the rotation.  It wasn’t a  _bad_  strange, but it still came a surprise.  And there was a novelty to being trusted with something which  _wasn’t_  chasing crechelings, too.

He started his rotation in the Room of a Thousand Fountains; planted a new section of marsh grasses, then internally shrugged and jumped into a pool to clean himself off again.  Then he headed to the Twilight Meditation Garden (once he had gotten done shaking his wings off like various canids shook out their fur when wet), where he had to feed the Alderaanian candlewick flowers.  According to his datapad, he was allotted quite a bit of time to work in the Room of Colors and Light, which despite its ridiculous name, was where the younglings spent most of their recreational time, and sometimes not always to the benefit of the micro ecosystem there.  (The pets probably didn’t help, either; three common cats, a tooka, two small canines, a herd of six pygmy kybucks and the odd chicken, never mind the high number of song birds, who lived and died in the cycle of life with the cats.  On a whim once, Maul had actually researched that and found that the birds had been breeding there for eight hundred some years and had developed some interesting quirks to deal with the rotation of felines.)

He didn’t have any set tasks there, though, which was a little puzzling.  But the common upkeep would probably keep him busy enough.  Children could be enthusiastically hard on foliage sometimes.

He was just heading that way when he felt a ping across his bond with Obi-Wan, something not unlike how one might hear the horn of a passing speeder; one brow went up when the padawan raced past him, then skidded to a halt and turned back – still walking backwards! – with his hands out. “I’m sorry, I’d stay and talk but I have somewhere to be.”

Maul opened his mouth to reply, since he hadn’t even  _asked_ if Obi-Wan had time to talk and thus was confused by the out-of-nowhere declaration, but then Obi-Wan was gone again in a blur of earthtones, leaving Maul to wonder what  _that_  was all about.

It was not long before he found out.

He walked into the Room of Colors and Light only to be faced full-on with a mass of crechelings, a few gardeners, a few padawans (his eyes only narrowed a little when a slightly sheepish Vos was among them), some Jedi Masters, and a senior healer he was extremely well-familiar with.

Maul, of course, immediately  _backed right on up_  at that many people looking at him, eyes wide, wings bristling.

The silence which followed would have been awkward, except then Issa was marching forward to grab his hand. “Come on, it’s your birthday!”

Maul gaped.  Blinked.   _“–what?”_

“Since we didn’t know for certain, beyond somewhere around  _sixteen_ , and you’ve been here quite awhile–” Vokara Che started, with a smile.

Issa, not surprisingly, interrupted, “–we said that today’s your birthday!”

Maul had his wings tight against his back, but he let Issa (try to) drag him forward, and the startling and somewhat  _overwhelming_  crowd of people were kind enough to part ways for her.  And him.  He tried to figure out what to even  _say_  to that declaration – he knew people celebrated such dates, but he’d never known his own, what he knew of his age was largely conjecture based on the growth patterns of other similar species – but the words all jumbled up and fled to the corners of his mind.

“Here, everyone go settle on your blankets and we’ll get to the food shortly,” Master Jinn said, mercifully taking command of the gaggle of people, which left Maul with Obi-Wan and Issa and Vokara Che in a small grouping.

“One shouldn’t slip by the Age of Responsibility without having it celebrated,” Master Che said, hands folded into her robes as she regarded him warmly. “This seemed as good a day as any.”

“That’s because my birthday’s at the end of next week,” Issa loud-whispered up at him; despite still reeling, that had Maul grinning a little bit, his hand still quite firmly in her possession.  Then she added, more boldly, “And since you’re gonna be my Master someday, we can have almost two whole weeks together!”

Half the people there looked over, but none of them spoke up.  Maul went to go tell her for the umpteenth time that it was impossible and– then didn’t.  However, he did immediately think of what he could get for her, which was admittedly a pleasant mental distraction from the sheer number of people he was in proximity to at once.

“It’s time for presents, and then there’s food,” Issa said, dragging him off.  “And extra sweetcakes.”

But not before Obi-Wan pulled him into a hug, made only slightly awkward for the fact that a little nautolan still would not relinquish his hand, and for the wings, which at least Obi-Wan knew his way around quite well.

Down their bond, Obi-Wan was projecting joy, bright and dancing and unfettered.  He gave Maul a squeeze and murmured in his ear, “I’m so glad you’re here.  Happy birthday.”

When he was let go of, Maul wondered fleetingly if Obi-Wan had felt that undeniably pleasant shiver that just went through him.

 

 

 

Maul had no idea what to do with gifts, but he certainly had a lot of them.

Thankfully, for his mental state if nothing else, the party which had begun startlingly turned low-key quickly; no one bombarded him in groups larger than one or two, not counting Issa, who was ever present by his side and quite enthusiastic about helping him open presents.  From Archix clan, he got a  _lot_  of painted pictures, kindly bound into a book format by Master Vrik.  Three sweetcakes, clearly saved from lunch.  Issa had painted a giant portrait with him, her and lots of birds under a big sky.

From the gardeners, he was given a collection of small plants – which he would add to the collection Master Jinn already kept – and access codes to all of the garden supply closets, presumably being released to work on his own if he so wanted to now.

From Vokara Che, he got a new set of robes, similar to the Jedi style, but in tones of dark to mid silver-gray to white and cut such that he could wear them without hindering his wings any.  And Vos presented him with a newly tooled belt, which– was rather shockingly thoughtful, as Maul hadn’t had one he hadn’t gotten from the quartermaster since his original was ruined.  (His willingness to forgive, if not  _forget_ , went up perhaps a thousand-fold when Vos, uncharacteristically bashful, said he’d tooled the belt himself; it was some incredibly well-done leatherwork and whatever else, Maul could appreciate craftsmanship.)

Bant supplied a fully stocked field medical kit, small enough to carry out on missions (even if he wasn’t likely to leave the Temple anytime soon) and robust enough to do some real good in the event of injuries or illnesses.  Garen, who Maul didn’t know as well, handed over a book on Jedi history… which turned out to be a hollowed out container for contraband holos, something Maul had little interest in, but  _did_  have the good sense to hide.

It was all a little overwhelming even if everyone  _was_  being careful, though.  After the food was gone, people drifted out with well-wishes, and while Maul was– surprised? Touched? by the effort, he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t relieved when more and more people left.  By then, he felt rather fatigued, despite not being physically tired, just from the sheer level of  _interaction._

He was, honestly, a little dazed by the time he got to the last gifts.  That might have been why they hit as hard as they did.

Obi-Wan confessed to not really knowing for sure what to get, which meant he oddly gave Maul something that Maul hadn’t even really known he was longing for: Lightsaber parts.  A box of them, some clearly recycled, some new; there were different  _kinds_ , too, which meant he could pick and choose which to use to design a saber.

Maul went to protest that he didn’t have any crystals, and that was when Master Jinn spoke up, having apparently been in on it – later, Maul would reflect that it made sense he  _would_  be, considering – with an offer to take him to the room where the older crystals were stored.  It wasn’t the same as making one – something Maul was supposed to learn how to do in his old apprenticeship in the next couple years – or going to find one on Ilum or one of the other worlds where they grew, but there was every chance one of them would call to him.

The thought of having his own blade again was more emotional than Maul knew how to cope with; he was never going to be quite as good as he had been on track to be, not with the wings in the way, but there was a  _rightness_  to having a lightsaber, a sense of completeness, and while he knew not to ask too many questions about the rules regarding him having one, he was intensely grateful for the offer.

It was while he was standing on that shaky platform that Issa gave him his last gift.

It was another painting, but where her usual style was all wild, enthusiastic fingerstrokes, bright and colorful, this one obviously had been done with a great deal of time and care.  It had a painted border like the ribbons she wore, little blotches of fishes in gold and green against a black background, and he could see her tiny fingerprints where she had dabbed the colors on with painstaking care.

It was another self-portrait, but she wasn’t the only subject.

Holding her hand was a tall nautolan girl, and they were both smiling at each other, against the backdrop of a cheerfully blue ocean.

He had told Issa about Kilindi once, not terribly long ago; not how she had died, though he had said that she was dead, and not what she had been training for.  But when Issa had asked if he had ever known another nautolan before her, he had told the child about the girl, with her quick smile and her grace and her kindness.

“Would she have liked me?” Issa had asked.

“Very much,” Maul had answered, and he was sure of that.  Because for as sharp and competent a killer as Kilindi was, even still in training, she was fiercely loyal to those she cared for, and genuinely gentle to the newest cadets when they arrived, and she had been kind to Maul when most others looked at him as the monster he later proved himself to be.

She would have loved Issa.

Now, he managed to cling to some tenuous thread of control long enough to thank her, and to also tell her he was going to take a walk but he would be back, and barely managed to extricate himself before he shattered to pieces.

 

 

 

“Do you know why they call it the Age of Responsibility?” Qui-Gon Jinn asked, the rumble of his voice breaking the quiet.

They were sitting in an ungainly sprawl of legs and a pair of wings, after Master Jinn had gently extricated Maul from the gardening closet he had managed to stuff himself into, cracked to pieces around his own knees and hiding in his feathers and trying futilely to force himself back into some box labeled  _composure._

He never knew an offered shoulder could be so devastating to such attempts, until he was sobbing himself half-senseless into one.

Now, however long later, he felt wrung-out and sore and shaky, brow still rested against Master Jinn’s thoroughly soaked shoulder, and every breath ached.  Still, he managed a nod, trying in vain to stop shivering and failing.

“While different species mature at different rates, in the Republic it’s considered the very  _earliest_  that a sentient can be expected to not only fully understand an action, but also the consequences of it.  Before that, most beings don’t have the physical or mental maturity to be held to the same standard of responsibility that an adult would.  Before that, it’s expected that their caregivers will guard over their well-being and best interests, and not exploit them or manipulate them, though obviously such things happen anyway.”

Even in his daze, Maul could glean some of what Master Jinn was trying to say.  He -- and presumably Vokara Che and the Jedi Council -- knew Maul had been at Orsis and when, though Maul had never told them the outcome.  But Maul thought probably it would not have been hard to put together some of it; one moment, there was an academy of mercenaries and assassins in training.  And now, they were all dead.

Except for the one who had killed them.

He tried to gather up strength to draw away and armor himself, but the broad hand on the back of his neck deterred him easily.

Maybe because he didn’t really want to be let go of.

“When you think to judge yourself harshly,” Master Jinn said, carefully, “I want you to stop, and look at Issa, and ask yourself if you would judge her the same, were her circumstances the same as yours.”

A thousand different protests tried to vie for the forefront of Maul’s mind; a hundred of them would have come flying out of his mouth if he had the energy left to open it.  Because it wasn’t the same.  Because it was  _Issa_ , and she was good and innocent, and he-- wasn’t anything the same.  He wasn’t  _good._   He wasn’t  _innocent._

He had never been those things.

Maybe the fresh round of tears that followed marked that fact.

Maybe they mourned it.

Master Jinn didn’t say anything more about it, but he squeezed on Maul and then echoed his padawan: “I’m glad you’re here.”

 

 

 

That was the end of the party, though Maul eventually managed to piece enough together to take his leave without alarming Issa any worse than he probably already had done.  Apparently, Obi-Wan and Master Che had been talking with her, because when he did come back, she looked solemn but understanding.  With gravity, she asked if he wanted to take Stripey home for the night, and for some reason Maul couldn’t begin to fathom, that almost wrecked what little semblance of control he had managed to achieve; he refused Stripey’s presence, but not the following cuddle, and then very carefully picked up the portrait that had set the whole thing off.

He didn’t remember the walk back.

Did not so much remember the next few days, either, again lost in a storm of grief and confused, sharp-edged feelings; of ache and loss and shame and longing.  Sometimes even just  _thinking_  about that picture had him burying his face in his hands.

It was the realization that he had to get Issa something for her birthday that forced him out of his own troubled mind.

When he finally hit on what, it was the first time he’d managed a smile in days.

 

 

 

Issa quite literally squealed.

It was a sharp, piercing noise that made Maul’s teeth ache, but it was probably the best sound he had ever heard, too.

Three days, string, glue, plastitube, springs, pulleys and a vast array of the feathers he had been saving for a reason he could not even fathom later, and she had her own set of wings.  Three days where Maul and Obi-Wan had sat in the living area of their quarters and trimmed the long primaries, fixing the old ragged parts and shaping them and sizing them down.  Three days where they designed a rigging system that would fit a tiny nautolan.  Three days where they glued feathers and picked bits of fluff out of their fingernails.

Three days where he built something, instead of broke it.

The night before Issa’s birthday, he framed and hung both of her pictures, and leaned into Obi-Wan when Obi put arms around him after.

Now, armed with a pair of wings which were a much smaller mimic of his, she was the (rather unJedi-like) envy of her crechemates, running around with those wings bouncing behind her, though she had been warned no less than twelve times that she definitely could not try flying on them, or even gliding.  Several birds twittered around her and three cats and a tooka were clearly rethinking their life choices, while the pygmy kybucks seemed heartily bemused by the laughing, winged nautolan running free.

Maul thought for sure that Kilindi Matako would have approved.


End file.
